Free Republic

If Jeb Bush doesn’t win any of the first four GOP contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — does that eliminate him from the Republican race? Or does he have the staying power to survive those losses? If Texas Sen. Ted Cruz finishes first in the Iowa caucuses, does that all but eliminate hopefuls such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Ben Carson from the race? If Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul finishes fourth in Iowa (which would be worse than his father’s third-place showing in the caucuses...

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The Republican Party's platform formally supports natural marriage. But in what may be a sign of the times, the GOP-controlled Senate has approved a non-binding resolution in support of granting marriage benefits to couples who have contracted same-sex “marriages.” The resolution asked the Senate's budget negotiators to make sure that "all legally married same-sex spouses have equal access to the Social Security and veterans' benefits they have earned and receive equal treatment under the law pursuant to the Constitution." Approved by a voice vote, the resolution received no opposition by any senators, nor...

Ted Cruz was on the Adam Carolla Show yesterday where they talked about everything from the IRS and tax reform to big government and career politicians. Give it a listen:audio in link

All in all, a pretty fun week for conservatives. Marco Rubio made a classy and inspiring entrance into a Republican field that is already impressive and energizing, and sure to become even more so. Meanwhile, the most powerful woman in American history dropped in with a campaign debut that ranged from underwhelming to comically inept. Or so it appears to those of us who have no intention of voting for her. Make no mistake, I have enjoyed the absurdity of the incognito Chipotle moment, the inexplicable road trip in the stupidly labeled “Scooby” van, the easy-to-mock fawning of the reporters...

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects will court presidential primary voters in New Hampshire this weekend at a state GOP meeting in Nashua. It's the first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state this year and offers no shortage of intriguing storylines as Republican contenders across the political spectrum deliver speeches, answer questions and work to stand out in the crowd. Five things we'll be watching for: [SNIP] Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, will be in New Hampshire as well to make sure Republicans don't get a free pass. [SNIP]

DENVER — The Colorado Republican Party has invited a gay GOP group that was barred from setting up a table at the Western Conservative Summit to share its booth. The Denver Post reports (http://goo.gl/06887P ) party Chairman Steve House announced the decision Thursday, the day after the Log Cabin Republicans were snubbed by summit organizers.

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-16/marco-rubio-tries-to-find-the-middle-ground-on-same-sex-marriage

Nearly 100 staff of Republican opposition research group America Rising are digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton. The group has 20 full-time and more than 50 part-time trackers across the country, mostly in early primary states and big money hubs such as Boston, New York and San Francisco, to document Clinton's every move. At the Arlington, Va., headquarters, more than 20 researchers are mining the paper trail she has left behind her during decades in public life, trying to find facts and factoids which can be turned into deadly ammo against the Democratic frontrunner. A dedicated war room synthesizes all...

A group of conservative activists will meet privately next month in suburban Washington to hear from potential Republican presidential candidates and determine who among them to support, a Republican involved in the effort said on Monday. Many conservatives want one of their own as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee and would prefer to avoid establishment candidates such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is expected to seek the nomination. The session at a hotel in Tyson's Corner, which is in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, will take place on May 15 and 16, according to the source, who spoke...

Wednesday CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood released his interview with Senate Minority Harry Reid (D-NV), in which Reid attacked Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the entire Republican field of candidates for the 20156 presidential race.

Marco Rubio announced his candidacy for presidency of the United States at the Freedom Tower in Miami on Monday, highlighting his family’s hardscrabble immigrant roots, embracing traditional values but also vowing to usher in a “new American century.” As a matter of political pragmatism, is there any convincing reason Rubio shouldn’t be the Republican to take on Hillary Clinton in 2016? Because when it comes to natural political talent, it unlikely the GOP can do better. For starters, Rubio is the most compelling speaker in the Republican field. Sen. Mike Lee says Rubio “can bring grown men to tears with...

Republicans’ latest attempt to slow the Obama administration’s climate change agenda calls for new regulations to be halted until all legal challenges are settled — an argument similar to the one President Obama has used when blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has begun work on legislation that would temporarily stop implementation of the administration’s Clean Power Plan, designed to force states to dramatically cut carbon pollution. The pollution reductions envisioned by the Environmental Protection Agency could only be achieved by addressing emissions from power plants, particularly coal-fired facilities. More than a dozen states,...

No matter how much their adversaries have tried to pin them as the "party of no," the GOP is far and away the most dynamic of the two major American political parties today. As evidence of this, just look at how the 2016 primary campaigns are shaping up on either side of the ideological divide. Conservative voters will get to choose from the youngest and most philosophically diverse group of GOP candidates I’ve seen in my lifetime, while the left will get to choose—wait, there is no choice. Yes, that’s right: Unless something drastically changes, the very same liberals who...

The lies of the left drive American politics. For years we heard the “Bush Lied” mantra chanted endlessly. It didn’t matter that the claim was wrong. A lie is a very specific thing… Saying a falsehood when you know it to be wrong. Bush never did that. While in retrospect the question of Saddam’s WMDs is unclear, at the time George Bush, Bill Clinton and the intelligence agencies of most of the world believed he did. There is a difference between being wrong and lying… but the left doesn’t care about truth when a lie better serves their purposes, whether...

Republicans are readying a familiar template: The out-of-touch plutocrat who lives in a world of private planes, chauffeured vehicles and million-dollar homes. Forget about the Arkansas days, the small-bore scandals, her health care plan, and most everything else from the 1990s. A consensus is forming within the Republican Party that the plan of attack against Hillary Clinton should be of a more recent vintage, rooted in her accumulation of wealth and designed to frame her as removed from the concerns of average Americans. With close to 20 announced and prospective GOP 2016 candidates, there’s no singular, unified messaging effort yet....

President Obama’s proposal for the use of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is dead in the House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared on Monday. The California Republican said Obama’s draft authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, could not win the 218 votes needed to pass the lower chamber, and suggested key GOP-led committees could draft an alternative. “I do not see a path to 218 with what the president sent up because the world has become more dangerous since he laid out Yemen as the strategy of how to move forward,”...

Talk radio host and author of “The Liberty Amendments,” Mark Levin said that Marco Rubio is “very engaging” and one of the candidates who is “going to challenge the Republican establishment” on Monday.

Persisting in a war with those who don’t pledge allegiance to the five-term U.S. Senator, John McCain and his loyalists are stomping on efforts to return the Arizona primary election to a pure party primary election. Just days ago, McCain announced a bid for what would be his sixth term in the U.S. Senate, extending his tenure in Washington D.C. to four decades, having served in the House of Representative prior to election to the Senate. Conservatives promptly came out in revolt against a sustained McCain Senate reign in a campaign highlighting the senator’s liberal history. A 1998 Arizona ballot...

Ted Cruz remains a conservative favorite in 2016. In 2012, the establishment backed his Senate opponent in Texas, then Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. The conservative grassroots backed Cruz and pushed him over the finish line. Cruz has since remained a favorite of the grassroots with a continually antagonist relationship with the Republican establishment. In 2010, Rand Paul, before Cruz, was a grassroots favorite. The Republican Establishment backed his rival, Trey Grayson. Paul rallied a coalition of conservative grassroots and Ron Paul acolytes to trounce Grayson and win the Kentucky Senate seat. Since then, Paul has wobbled between maintaining grassroots support...

As he did with Rand Paul, Ted Cruz praises the entrance of Marco Rubio into the 2016 race for president: Today U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement regarding the announcement that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will also seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States:“Marco is a friend and colleague whom I greatly respect. We’re both the sons of immigrants who escaped Cuba to build a better life in the United States, and we share a deep appreciation and understanding of what it means to work hard and achieve the American Dream. Marco is...